1/ Samsung is planning to increase the price of NAND storage wafers

According to digitime, Samsung plans to increase the price of NAND wafers. In addition, if the consumer electronics market demand improves in the second half of the year, NAND wafer contract quotations may pick up.

South Korean NAND memory makers Samsung and SK Hynix have sought to raise prices of NAND flash memory by 3%-5% to test market reaction, saying the price of NAND flash memory has fallen below variable costs, the report said. It is noticed that some brands of SSD prices are approaching HDD prices.

Market research firm TrendForce pointed out that after South Korean storage manufacturers sharply reduced production in May, some suppliers have raised prices for NAND wafers, and their quotations for the Chinese market have been slightly higher than the transaction prices in March-April. The agency predicts that downstream SSD module factories will start stocking up in June, and 512Gb NAND flash memory wafers are expected to stop falling and rebound slightly, ending the 13-month downward trend in prices.

In addition, the report also pointed out that due to Samsung’s large-scale production cuts in the second quarter, some NAND buyers’ willingness to purchase increased, and downstream SSD manufacturers and PC OEMs were the most active. As a result, overall NAND memory shipments are expected to grow 5.2% sequentially in the second quarter. Due to the strong willingness of buyers to purchase, NAND storage manufacturers such as Samsung have gradually strengthened their quotations. It is expected that NAND prices will start to rise in the third quarter of this year, with an increase of up to 5%, and the increase will further expand to 8%-13% in the fourth quarter.

2/ TSMC planning 3–6% price hike starting in 2024

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